Looks like he’s new in the beta, but the “Red-Shirted Fact Checker” is now standing right next to Falsted Wildhammer, who’s now in Ironforge. Looks like the screenshot above was taken from the horde perspective…I wonder what he says when you click on him if you’re alliance.

After today’s maintenance, Horde and Alliance players will find that the updated instances for Operation Gnomeregan and Zalazane’s Fall will be available to enter, so Horde players can head into the Echo Isles to retake the Troll homelands and put an end to Zalazane’s tyranny, and the Gnomes and their allies can muster their forces to retake the Gnomes’ home city of Gnomeregan.

Back when Blizzard hosted the Cataclysm Press Tour, one of the unfortunate things we saw mentioned was the possibility that heroic versions of The Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep might not be ready in time for the launch of Cataclysm, and that they may have to wait for a future content patch update to give the team more time to work on them.

Well, word came down yesterday that those fears were nothing to worry about, because the two new dungeons will indeed be ready in time for the launch of Cataclysm, and players will be able to head in and see their favorite starting-game dungeons re-worked for the new world that we’ll get when the expansion comes out. Here’s the official word from Valnoth, when someone else in a thread stated that they wouldn’t be ready as fact and the reason why they weren’t available in beta:

Heroics are not ready for testing.

Heroic Shadowfang Keep and Heroic Deadmines WILL be released with Cataclysm. You will not have to wait for a later patch.

Strap on your pirate stompers kids, it’s back to Westfall for the Alliance and back to Silverpine Forest for the Horde!

If you’ve been thinking about rolling a female Worgen but you’ve wondered up until now exactly what they’d look like, then look no further. Blizzard sent The Escapist a number of screenshots of what the character models will look like, and while they currently admittedly look like re-skinned Draenei, some of their stances and animations are definitely unique.

The screenshots at The Escapist show off a specific female Worgen model wearing cloth armor, then wearing leather, then wearing mail, and then again wearing plate. As we know, Worgen will be able to be any class in Cataclysm except Paladins and Shaman, so at least one of their classes will be able to wear any type of armor. The other screenshots are fantastic, head over to take a look!

Doesn’t High Tinker Mekkatorque look badass in that shot? I mean seriously – it’s probably the best image of a gnome looking like he’s serious business I think I’ve ever seen. Seriously, don’t mess with the gnomes.

If you’re looking for some information on your realm, like what the horde-to-alliance ratio is, or how many alliance paladins you have on your server versus how many rogues there are, WarcraftRealms can give you all of the information you’re looking for. Just head over to the realm data page and look up your server to see everything you wanted to know about the population of your server.

The data is mined from a combination of the Armory and user submissions using the WarcraftRealms add-on, so it’s only really accurate for characters over level 10 that have made it into the armory, but if you’re interested in lending the project a hand on your server, you can download the utility and use it to help bolster the site’s database. In the interim though, the service probably has more information about your realm than you thought you wanted.

That header image up there is probably entirely too small for you to see, so go ahead and click on it to make it larger. Or you can click here to see it on the Warcraft Anniversary site.

The only parts of the header graphic that are visible when you visit the site directly are the figures in the front, Varian Wrynn and Thrall, standing on opposite sides of the page. In the full image, when enlarged, you can clearly tell there are additional figures off to the side of each of them, shrouded in shadows. Who they are isn’t exactly a secret if you look closely – it’s obvious that standing with Wrynn are the Prophet Velen in the back, King Bronzebeard next to Varian, and a night elf woman who is likely Tyrande Whisperwind. Over standing next to Thrall we can clearly make out Sylvanas Windrunner, Cairne Bloodhoof in the back, Lor’themar Theron next to Sylvanas, and likely Vol’jin down at the bottom.

So we know who they are, and we know where they stand, but why are they in the background and why are their faces blurred out? There are already interesting unrevealed things afoot at the anniversary minisite, like the interviews and special video, and the fact that the celebratory Battlecry contest (where players print out the Horde or Alliance symbol and take snapshots of themselves holding it in interesting places) has revealed a part of a photo mosaic that’s being revealed piece by piece.

It’s possible – although not terribly likely – that the banner plays a role as well. We’ll just have to wait and see. Besides, I love the art in the banner – they should take the Horde and Alliance faction leaders and turn each into a desktop wallpaper we can download.

I stumbled on this a couple of weeks ago and immediately thought it was hilarious. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a preference in faction really – my first world of warcraft character ever was a Tauren Druid, and my second was a Night Elf Hunter. Granted, I’ve come to play mostly Alliance characters these days, but that’s just because that’s where my friends have been. (If you play horde and know some nice people on a good server, let me know! I’d love to meet you!)

But that being said, there’s no debate that there are simply more Alliance players in the game overall than horde players, and the old stereotype that horde players are a little elitist doesn’t come for no reason. A lot of it’s been diluted since Burning Crusade, but old habits are hard to beat.

Speaking of stereotypes, it looks like there’s some validity to the whole “Alliance players are all kids” one, as proved by the first episode of Alliance v. Horde:

Now that Blizzard has announced that soon you’ll be able to change your faction, a lot of people are thinking about doing it and even more are talking about how it’ll work. Blizzard has all but said that you’ll have to either keep your class so you’ll only be able to change to a race that has that class, but they haven’t said if they’re doing one-to-one changes or any mage can choose an opposing race that supports mages.

Some guilds are talking about switching faction en masse – either to get better racial bonuses (horde to alliance) or to take advantage of high/low pop servers (a horde guild on a low horde pop server switching to a high horde pop server to find more people to recruit, for example), and other people are talking about switching just to get a chance to play with friends who are on the other side.

What about you? What would it take for you to take one of your characters now and change their faction as opposed to just leveling an alt of the opposing faction or rolling a death knight?

I recently heard someone (I’ve forgotten who – sorry!) on The Instance mention the Draenei in the context of the other Alliance races – what is their deep, dark secret? Every other Alliance race has a tarnish, from the gnomes’ senseless forays into uncontrollable technology to the elves’ storied flirtations with dark forces. But the Draenei seem to lack a shadow; they come across as big, blue, hammer-wielding teddy bears.

As a kind of answer to that question, I offer two narrative points: that the Draenei don’t need a dark history and that they probably shouldn’t have one.(more…)